


I Want To Save The World

by ForgottenChesire



Series: Kinktober 2018 [5]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Fucks with timelimes, Gen, Graphic Torture, Helen goes pretty far off the deep end, Kinktober 2018, Psychological Torture, Sadism, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 14:36:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16199534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgottenChesire/pseuds/ForgottenChesire
Summary: “Helen, stop this… please.”“I’ve seen the future Nick. And it’s an ugly place.”She’s said that before. When there was smoke and fire. A clone that looked like him. A gasping broken whimper that still haunts his nightmares. He had found her standing over his Connor, not the Connor still blissfully out and hanging where one of her Cleaner clones had put him before leaving them alone. She had shot his Connor in the chest, a wild look in her eyes as his student lay there dying. Stupid boy had come in to find Nick. To save Nick. As if she can read his thoughts, she turns her head to look at him. A sharp smile on her lips, one hand still on Stephen’s face.“You’ve figured out the Artefact haven’t you. The Artefact that you hid, that kept you from leaving and caused Connor to run right into my arms.”Nick clenches his jaw, saying nothing. The look on her face is one of wonder, of childlike glee, and validation. She always did love it when they talked of evolution and discrepancies in fossil records. Displacement. He hasn’t figured it out yet. Can barely look at it when Sarah forces him to. Can’t keep thinking how much Connor would have liked Danny.





	I Want To Save The World

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5 Kink Sadism/Masochism
> 
> WARNING! TRIGGER WARNING EVEN; this fic contains the graphic description of tortures that include: breaking bones, cutting people up, ripping out toenails, and being forced to watch a person you love being tortured. Please do not read if this will take you to a bad place.
> 
> A note; Connor is from our timeline, the timeline we all know and love. Stephen is from a timeline where Connor dies in Stephen's place but everything else progresses normally, and Nick is from a timeline where Connor dies when he should have. I tried to make that clear but just in case I'm putting it here too.

Once upon a time, Nick had loved Helen. Loved her enough to ask her to his wife. She was beautiful, perfect in every way, smart, and god when she looked at him it was like he was the center of the universe. He would be lying if he said that she wasn’t still beautiful, that she wasn’t still smart enough to run circles around him. But now? Now she looks at him like he’s an means to an end. Like he’s a frustrating puzzle piece that won’t fit in her puzzle. She knows that she can’t play him any more. Looking around the warehouse that he finds himself in Nick feels his heart sinking. She’s standing in the middle of the room, that smug little smile on her face that he loved to kiss.

 

“Come now Nick, surely you knew this would happen,” she purrs gesturing to her “gifts” to him. They’re arranged so that he can see them both easily and they can see him easily… they just can’t see each other without twisting.

 

“I had hoped you wouldn’t. That you were better than this.”

 

She laughs, throws back her head and laughs so freely. Long ago it used to make him weak in the knees. He would have done anything to hear her laugh, see her eyes light up. It’s a delightful sound… in his memories. Now it’s saturated in insanity. Something inside her broke during those years in the past. Twisted her up. Made her a monster. His body shudders, in heart-pounding fear and disgust. He watches as she turns, graceful like a cat, taking a step toward one of the two limp forms she has hanging like slabs of meat.

 

“Helen-” there is a quake in his voice. 

 

“I would have thought you’d be  _ happy _ to see them,” she says caressing Stephen, because it is Stephen there. So still except for the rising of his chest. Alive. Breathing. In one piece instead of torn apart by apex predators that Helen and Leek gathered. She touches him like she would a lover. Sweet. Gentle.

 

“After all,  _ you _ are the reason they died.”

 

Nick flinches the guilt buried so deep inside him thrums. So many what if’s running through his mind.

 

“Helen, stop this… please.”

 

“I’ve seen the future Nick. And it’s an ugly place.”

 

She’s said that before. When there was smoke and fire. A clone that looked like him. A gasping broken whimper that still haunts his nightmares. He had found her standing over his Connor, not the Connor still blissfully out and hanging where one of her Cleaner clones had put him before leaving them alone. She had shot his Connor in the chest, a wild look in her eyes as his student lay there dying. Stupid boy had come in to find Nick. To save Nick. As if she can read his thoughts, she turns her head to look at him. A sharp smile on her lips, one hand still on Stephen’s face.

 

“You’ve figured out the Artefact haven’t you. The Artefact that you hid, that kept you from leaving and caused Connor to run right into my arms.”

 

Nick clenches his jaw, saying nothing. The look on her face is one of wonder, of childlike glee, and validation. She always did love it when they talked of evolution and discrepancies in fossil records. Displacement. He hasn’t figured it out yet. Can barely look at it when Sarah forces him to. Can’t keep thinking how much Connor would have liked Danny. How he and Becker would have bonded given half a chance. The life that should have been but was cut off. Regret, grief, anger, things that he pushes down and down and down.

 

“They have nothing to do with this. Put them back. Where ever you got them from, just put them back.”

 

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong. Because even though they aren’t yours, they aren’t the ones that you started you adventure with… The ones from your timeline, they  _ are _ still your boys. Your friends. Your weakness.”

 

She looks back at Stephen. Places little kisses on the younger man’s face. Nick is helpless, forced to watch as Stephen’s face acts as all face do when something unexpected touches it. Scrunches up, twitches. Nick wonders if this dark curdling in his stomach is what true, endless hate feels like. 

 

“Helen,” Nicks begs softly, “Helen please.”

 

Begs like a dying man because as much as he still loves her and as much as he hates her he wants  _ them _ safe. Away from her. His boys are dead. Buried. His fault. And these innocent souls, this Connor and Stephen from other timelines, have nothing to do with the insanity that is Helen Cutter.

 

“They watched you die, you know. I killed you in their timelines. It’s why your Connor had to die. I had thought maybe, just maybe, if saw him die. Held him as he breathed his last breath the future would change. And if it didn’t change you would help me. Help me change it for the better.”

 

He’s never been shot but he imagines that this is what it feels like. Those words strike him hard. Physically leave him reeling. Stephen wakes up and Nick gets to see the moment when his TA realized who is in front of him. Gets to see blue eyes widen in alarm. The tracker struggles against his bonds. Tugging on them, twisting and turning. Helen giggles, honest to god giggles, as she continues to pet Stephen.

 

“Hello to you too Stephan. Miss me?”

 

“With every shot,” Stephen growls lowly.

 

Nick tenses waiting to see what his ex-wife would do. But all she does is step aside to allow Stephen to see Nick. They drink each other in. Like a man who was lost in the desert dives into an oasis head first. Nick doesn’t know what, if anything, changed between their timelines. Maybe he wasn’t still a huge ass to the best friend he had ever had, god he hopes that maybe since Stephen is alive that maybe they had still been friends. That somehow, some way no life was lost  _ that _ day. They’re so wrapped up in trying to convey hundreds of things; apologies, worries, care, everything they couldn’t vocally speak, that they forget about Helen. And forgetting about Helen is never a good thing. She appears like a ghost. Suddenly. Arm out. They both scream. Nick in worry, Stephen in pain. Stephen jerks about, body seizing and bladder emptying as electricity from the taser courses through him.

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

She’s not sorry at all and they all know it. Like a shark, she circles around Stephen, taser held in a loose grip.

 

“You miss him don’t you, Nick?” She asks like she’s talking about the weather and nothing nefarious is going on.

 

“Helen for god's sake-”

 

“He’s so pretty but you never noticed that, did you? Left him open for me to snatch up. He was so gentle. I was the one who had to teach him how to be rough. That a little pain made sex all that much better. Oh, how you should have heard him cry, Nick. So beautiful.”

 

She jabs the taser against Stephen’s kin again. Laughing as he jolts about pulling on the cuffs holding him up. The hand not holding the taser pets the heaving chest before her when she decides that he’s had enough electricity.

 

“Have you ever thought, what would have changed if you had come with me that first time? When we had just exited the Permian. You were so worried about Claudia. Spurned me. In each timeline I go into, you consistently turn me away. Do you know how many lives I’ve had? The technology of the future is amazing. Draining and at such a cost-”

 

On she monologues, hinting at lives she’s destroyed. Timelines she has played with. Nick sees the moment defiance enters Stephen’s eyes. That look they shared when giving Lester the two-finger salute. Stephen kicks out, smooth just like Abby taught him, at Helen. Helen who merely grabs Stephen’s leg.

 

“Some things never change. You turning me down,” she starts with a calm air. Slowly she takes off Stephen’s shoe, letting it hit the concert with an ominous  _ thud _ .

 

“Claudia Brown being erased and replaced with Jenny Lewis. And then,” she peels off his sock, “there’s you Stephen dear.”

 

Here hand slips down to the pinkie toe.  _ SNAP _ ! Both Nick and Stephen stare at Helen. Not comprehending what had just been done. Then Stephen cries out, trying desperately to get his foot back.

 

“I always go to him. Slip back into his life. Seduce him again. When you shun him. And you always shun him, Nick. Punish him for loving me. And he comes running to me. Wanting my approval-”

 

“Not anymore,” Stephen interrupts yanking his foot back again. It barely moves out of Helen’s firm grip.

 

Helen breaks another toe calmly before continuing to talk.

 

“I plant ideas into his head,” here she pauses, tilts her head, “you know I think that you’re the only one who hasn’t died when you and Stephen argue at the menagerie. Connor has a few times, Stephen of course, and on one memorable time your little Abby.”

 

Nick yanks on his restraints. Yelling wordlessly as Helen considers Stephen’s foot. 

 

“Just say you’ll help me, Nick. Say it and I’ll stop hurting him. Say it and I’ll let you keep them.”

 

Stephen looks confused for a moment. He hasn’t seen Connor, too focused on Helen and Nick to twist and see the younger boy. He doesn’t know all that has gone down in Nick’s timeline. The explosions, the pain, the wild chases that ended with Nick being kidnapped. Dragged through Anomaly after Anomaly.

 

“Say it Nick,” Helen presses.

 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

He gets a tight-lipped smile before Stephen’s head is thrown back and a scream escapes. Three toes are broken, her hand on the fourth and mouth open. But then a groan cuts through the air. Connor. Connor is waking up.

 

Helen drops Stephen’s foot, joy lighting up her face again. Then in a moment of helpfulness, she turns Stephen so that he can see Connor.

 

“Look at him Stephen. Whole. Complete. Unharmed unlike the last time you saw him. In his timeline you died. Nick died too. Found him drinking his pain away. He called out for you, for Nick when he saw me. When he tried to scramble away. You can keep me from hurting him. Just tell Nick to say yes.”

 

“I don’t know what you want but I’m not going to help you,” Stephen grits out. Eyes firmly on the young man groaning and moaning softly. Helen releases her hold, letting him yank back into a position where he can’t see Connor and steps away. She doesn’t look disappointed, she looks excited Nick notes with worry.

 

“I want to save the world,” she says walking away. Going someplace that Nick can’t see. But he can hear her moving something. A trolley maybe? Stephen’s face pales and that doesn’t bode well. When she comes back into view she’s pushing trolley. Things glint in the spotty light and she’s humming a tune.

 

“You’re going to agree,” she says coming to a stop in front of Connor, “if not for your precious world, or Stephen then maybe Connor.”

 

Stephen twists himself so that he can see Connor. Helen steps in front of Connor, hand hovering over the things on her trolley.

 

“Let’s wake him all the way up, shall we?”

 

The screams that follow tear through Nick. High pitched. Scared. Pained. He can’t see Connor but he can hear him. All the while Helen hums what Nick thinks is  _ London Bridge is Falling Down. _

 

_ “ _ There! Perfect!”

 

She steps aside, letting them see what she’s done. It’s hard to read, bloody as it is. But in big block letters reads  **pRopErtY of HeLen CutTeR** . She looks so proud of herself. Connor’s head is hanging limply but Nick can still see his chest heaving.

 

“Why?”

 

Connor’s head snaps up at the sound of his voice. A soundless cry leaving those lips. Then he glares at Helen, lips pulling back in a snarl.

 

“What did you do?”

 

She caresses his face, body shivering as she trails the knife down his cheek. Like a cat, she licks up the blood ignoring the question for the time being.

 

“What did you do?!”

 

The knife goes down and she picks something else up. Something that she attaches to his side. It makes him flinch as one by one clothes hangers are attached to his side.

 

“You don’t think your timeline is the only one, do you? It may be the one I started out in but it’s not the  _ only _ one out there.”

 

She looks at Nick.

 

“Tell me what I want to hear.”

 

Nick doesn’t. He can’t. And even if he could he doubts that Helen actually wants to fix the world. Taking his silence for what it is, a denial and Helen has never taken denial well, her face twists.

 

“Very well. I do so enjoy this.”

 

He watches as she grabs something else. Cylinder and thick, pulls a lighter from her jeans. A candle Nick realizes. She lights it and then puts it back down. A relief, almost, if it wasn’t for the fact she picks up a thin stick barely three centimeters thick.

 

Connor doesn’t look at Helen. At the stick. He has eyes only for Nick. Like with Stephen he doesn’t see the last person in the room. Brown eyes, large, trusting, so alive it hurts to look at him.

 

“Nick?”

 

Nick trembles in time with Connor’s voice. Still at his side, Helen smacks the stick against her hand, making soft pleased sounds as it connects with her skin.

 

“It’s going to be okay Connor,” the words taste like ash in his mouth. Congealing there like days old blood.

 

“You shouldn’t lie to the boy,” Helen scolds him as she brings the stick down onto Connor’s thigh. He cries out. Cringes away, pulls on what must already be sore muscles. She keeps hitting Connor. Something deep, oh so deep, inside Nick twists. It brings bile up from his stomach and it settles into his mouth. So Nick watches as she delivers sharp to-the-point swats as she circles Connor. Nick’s tired, hurting from being in this position but he fights. Yanks on his hands. Yanks til the cuff  keeping them up bites into the skin. Pulls and pulls until if feels like he’s rising from the ground. There is an ache that burns. He’s doing anything to get there to stop Helen. From the corner of his eyes he sees Stephen doing the same. They could have handled it. Had a stiff upper lip and separated themselves from what was happening. But it’s  _ Connor _ . It’s Connor. Oh god. She stops at one point to cut away Connor’s clothes. Leaving just his pants uncut. From there she picks up the candle.

 

“Tell me you’ll help fix the future. Tell me we can be a team again.”

 

She doesn’t give Nick time to refuse. To deny, splashing the liquid onto Connor’s already bruising legs. Nick will never get the sound of those screams out of his head. Nor the sound of Connor dislocating his own shoulders. Helen shudders, whole body moving, quaking. It disturbs Nick that he recognises that movement. She did it whenever she was turned on. 

 

“Leave him alone!” Stephen cries out. His voice raw and the sentence leaves him coughing. But he yells right along with Nick as she picks up the knife again. As she slides it along Connor’s ribs and around the clothes pins that are slowly bruising skin. Pushes down his pants so that she has more skin to play with. She pays special attention to Connor’s hip and the crease between leg and groin. By now Nick thinks he’s gone deaf. Ears ringing. The rough fabric biting into his wrists. There is no worse hell than this.

 

“Stop. Please. Please stop,” Connor begs, little whines and clogged sighs as Helen takes pliers to his toes, the shoes and socks tossed away like trash. One by one. Scream by scream she rips them out. Dips the foot in salt and reveals in the pain.

 

She leaves Connor’s feet in the salt and returns to her instruments. She slides on a glove that has what appears to be spikes the fingers. Nick wants to close his eyes. Turn his head. But he can’t do that to Connor. So he sees Helen curl her hand up and punch Connor hard in the leg. Right on a bruise. Connor, his poor lad, goes limp. He’s not made to feel this much pain.

 

“His screams are so lovely… I may have to keep him,” Helen whispers, the sound bouncing and echoing as she grabs Connor’s face in her hands.

 

“He’s about the age I like. Smart. Cute. How do you think he’d look in my bed, Nick? Think he’d come to enjoy me? Scream my name?”

 

Nick works his jaw. Carefully considers what he wants to say. She could break his neck like that. A simple twist. No more Connor. His fault. Again.

 

“Helen?”

 

“Yes?”

 

She turns to him. Saunters over. Hands wet with blood, smelling of copper touch him. She tilts her head. Blinks her eyes. Lust filled and dark. He had loved her at one point. He hears Stephen panting. Can taste bile on his tongue. It wouldn’t take much to get her to stop. To save Connor.

 

“I-”

 

There’s a ringing crashing. Gun fire. He tries to look behind him. He knows those voices. Becker. Danny. They’re coming. Like a phoenix, hope rises in his chest. Burning and glowing as it spreads. Until Helen’s hands tighten on him.

 

“No.”

 

The sounds get louder though they are still far away.

 

“No!”

 

It’s like she flies back over to her trolley. Bends down to rummage through the things on the bottom.

 

“This was supposed to be used in celebration. A treat! To show that I could be kind. That I still love you.”

 

“You killed him once-“

 

“Twice, Stephen I killed Nick twice to save the world.”

 

Nick thinks he hears Stephen mutter under his breath that that isn’t love but he’s too focused on Helen to really care. She’s opening a bottle of bourbon. The good stuff. The stuff he likes. She’s splashing it on Connor. On his legs. His chest. Some of it even gets on his face. When she pulls something out of her pocket. Square. A matchbox from which she pulls a match.

 

“Don’t!”

 

“Goodbye, Nick.”

 

The match is lit. Thrown. Helen is gone. He’s screaming. He knows he is. Connor is still out. Blissfully unaware of the fire alight upon him. And then Becker is there.

 

“Follow Helen damn it!” That’s Danny yelling as he works with Becker to get Connor down, to put out the blaze before it runs out of alcohol to burn. Nick knows though. That she’s gone. They won’t find her. Becker looks up and Nick smiles hesitantly. He doesn’t know what timeline he’s in. And his heart sinks as he sees the look of surprise on Becker’s face.

 

“Who the fuck are the other blokes?” Danny asks. He has his hands on Connor. Holding him. Everything that Nick ever hoped for. The fact that he’s been replaced again doesn’t even hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> Feedback
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta)  
> Author Responses
> 
> This author replies to comments.  
> This author, and boy does it feel weird to address myself like this lol, understands that leaving comments can be very stressful. She has a lot of anxiety. So if you don’t want me to answer your comments don’t worry, if you sign it with “~Whisper” I won’t reply. I love all of you so much!


End file.
